Last week I was meeting with a friend about a ministry that he hopes to develop here in the city. As we prayed together at the end of our meeting I found myself getting excited about the potential of his vision to mobilize young adults into ministry in the city. Then he prayed for me, and especially for my upcoming vacation. He prayed out a picture he had in his mind of me on a mountain somewhere in Scotland with my Bible, alone with God. My prayer for him and his ministry was an encouragement to him that he was on the right track. It’s one thing to discuss and give advice. But it’s different when you sit together and talk to God about something and in the prayer process you begin to sense something of God’s heart for the ministry. Then your words to God become powerful encouragement and ministry to the person you’re praying with. It was the same when he prayed for me. He was the one praying for me, but in his prayer I heard the voice of my heavenly father speaking to me and giving me encouragement and direction.
By the way, this is one reason why it’s a good idea to learn to pray out loud for each other. It allows God to use our words to speak into the hearts of our brothers and sisters.
That’s what’s happening in Ephesians 3:14-21. The Ephesians can’t hear Paul pray for them (he’s in prison in Rome) so he tells them what he’s praying for them. His goal is that they be built up and grow in their faith, and his prayer can serve as a model for us on how to pray that for others and also as a model for how to develop up our own spiritual life.
When I was growing up, if a kid got lippy with an adult they would often be told, “Remember who you’re talking to!” There is an appropriate respect due to elders that we often forget in our society. There are appropriate ways of talking to different people. We speak to our boss differently from how we speak to our kids. We speak to our spouse differently from how we speak to the person that serves us in the store.
And we expect different things from different people too. From our spouses we expect love and loyalty. From the clerk at a store we have a much lower expectation. We’re satisfied with courteous service. How we speak to people and what we expect from them depends on our relationship to them.
So Paul begins his prayer report with a reminder to himself and the Ephesians of who it is they’re talking to.
He says, I kneel before the Father. We come before God as our father. That’s the relationship we have with him. We have all kinds of other relationships with him too; he is our creator, our sustainer, our judge, our redeemer. But when we pray, we pray to him as our father. That’s how Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Our Father…” and it’s clear that they taught the early church to pray the same way.
Paul calls him the father,”from whom his whole family (or every family) in heaven and on earth derives its name.”It’s not really clear what Paul means by that. If you translate it “his whole family,” then it probably refers to all those who have become part of God’s family by putting their faith in him. If you translate it “every family” it would mean everybody in creation. Either way, the point is that our Heavenly Father is the source, not only of our identity, but of our very life, both as human beings and as Christians.
We need to remember who it is we’re talking to, because it will affect what we ask for. I read a story this week, told by Haddon Robinson when he was president of Denver seminary.
[When I came to Denver Seminary, the school had a phone system that was like two cans on a string. We desperately needed a new one, so I visited a businessman, and I told him we needed to raise twenty thousand dollars for the new phone system. We talked for a while about it, and then he asked, “How much would you like me to give?”
I said, “Well, could you give a thousand dollars?”
He pulled out his checkbook, wrote me check for a thousand dollars, pushed it across the desk, and said, “You insulted me.”
I thought, I’ve offended him. I shouldn’t have asked him for money. But he said, “You asked me for a thousand dollars, but you needed twenty thousand.”
“Either you felt that I wasn’t able to give much money, in which case you underestimated where I am financially, or worse, you thought I had the money but wouldn’t give you more, in which case you insulted my generosity. ”]
Our Father in heaven is the source of all there is, and he our Father. He has no lack of resources, and he isn’t tight. So, the first thing Paul does in his prayer is remind himself, the Ephesians, and us, who it is we’re talking to when we pray. Once he’s reminded himself of who God is, he has no problem asking that he bless the Ephesians, out of his glorious riches. He knows that God is generous, and that he has all kinds of riches to bless them, and us, with.
But what Paul asks for is not financial blessing. In fact, what he asks for is actually invisible; you can’t see it.
16 I
pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through
his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your
hearts through faith.
[If we were to
believe the makeover shows on TV we would think that the most important things
about improving or strengthening people have to do with the externals. “What
Not To Wear” remakes a person’s image with a couple of fashion consultant, a
couple of days and a credit card. “Extreme Makeover” takes longer, more money
and a plastic surgeon, but still the emphasis is on externals.
The message is,
“Change the externals and you change the person.” Try applying that approach to
other makeover shows. In “Overhaulin’” they take a beat up old clunker and
transform it into a classic. They do the custom paint jobs, the upholstery, and
the chrome and the mag wheels, all the exterior stuff. But what is the use of
all that if the chassis is rotted away, or the suspension is falling apart, or
the engine is leaking oil and the cylinder head is cracked?
The external
makeover isn’t worth a hill o’ beans if the internal stuff isn’t taken care
off. But, of course, you can’t see the chassis, or the suspension, or the
engine. They’re all invisible under normal circumstances; they’re internal to
the car.]
That’s what Paul is
addressing here, the internal stuff, the chassis and suspension and engine of
our lives, not the paint job or the upholstery. So he prays that, out
of his glorious riches [the Father] may strengthen you with power through his
Spirit in your inner being, He’s asking that God will take from his riches
and transfer some of that into the very core of their lives.
Now, there are some
aspects of God’s riches that he can share with us, and some he can’t. God is
omnipresent, he’s everywhere at all times. He’s as much here with us now as he
is in Australia or in some far off part of the universe. But, much as parents
would like to be omnipresent, God can’t share that with us. That’s because he’s
God and we’re not. The same goes for being omnipotent – able to do anything –
and omniscient – knowing all there is to know, and so on. God can’t transfer to
us things that he has because he’s God.
- But he can transfer things to us that he has because he’s a person,
because we’re persons too.
So God can’t make us
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but he can give us the strength
of character to overcome the obstacles that life puts in our path. He can’t
give us all the knowledge he has about life, the universe and everything, but
he can give us the wisdom to make good decisions with the knowledge we do have.
He can’t give us the ability to miraculously change a person’s personality
(which he could do but doesn’t), but he can give us his love for that person so
we can learn to live with them and accept them as they are.
That’s what it means
to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your
inner being. Another way of
saying it is, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Those two expressions are parallels of each
other. They mean the same thing. One addresses the process, the other talks
about the goal.
(By the way, this is
the only place in the whole Bible where it speaks of Jesus being “in our
hearts.” You wouldn’t think it from the way we use it so much, but it isn’t
really a common expression in the Bible. It’s much more common to speak of
following Jesus, or to use expressions that talk about walking in his way, or
living according to his pattern. Perhaps if we used more Biblical language with
its active verbs like “following” Jesus, rather than “accepting” Jesus – which
the Bible never actually says either, we would be less tempted to think of
Christianity as something static – a one time decision – and more like a
lifetime direction.)
When Paul speaks of
Jesus dwelling in their hearts through faith he is praying that at the very
core of their beings, the Ephesians will become like Christ; that when they act
or think or speak it will be out of a character that is formed after the
likeness of Christ. That was Paul’s desire for the Galatians too, in Galatians
4:19 where he writes of his desire that Christ be formed in them; that at the
core of their being, they would be like Christ.
So Paul tells us the how that works, the source, the process and the goal. The source is the Father and all the riches of his love and grace. The process is the work of the Holy Spirit in our inner beings, who takes what we need from the Father’s riches and applies it to our lives. And the goal is that we become like Christ; that the centre of our being, where all our choices and decisions come from (what the Bible calls our “heart”) that that centre be shaped into the likeness of Christ.
It is out of the Father’s riches, delivered into our lives by the Holy Spirit, that we experience the presence of Christ at the core of our being. (So the next time someone tells you the Bible doesn’t teach the doctrine of the Trinity you can point them to this passage.)
That’s how spiritual growth works from God’s side. How does it work from our side? It is God who strengthens us and dwells with us. Our responsibility is simply to recognise that.
And
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have
power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide
and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know
this love that surpasses knowledge
Paul prays that God will strengthen the Ephesians, then he prays that they will get a handle on what God has done and is doing in their lives. That’s what he means when he prays that they will have power… to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.
[Toy Story 2 is a great kids’ movie that features the space ranger Buzz Lightyear. A four-year-old boy who loved that movie was in a Sunday school class, learning that God's love has no limits. At the end of class the teacher, reviewing the lesson, asked, “So, how much does God love us?"
Quoting Buzz's big line in the film, the little boy replied, “To infinity and beyond!”]
He got the message.
He understood that there are no limits to God’s love for us. But so often we
are unaware of what God has done for us, or we forget and we don’t let it shape
our lives. That’s why the words Paul uses here are about grasping and knowing,
getting a handle on what God has done.
And he says that in
order to get that handle on what God has done we need to do it together
with all the saints. That
means that we can’t know the love of God in isolation from his people. There
are aspects of God’s love that you know that I don’t know. I need you to share
your experience and understanding of his love so that I can know it better. And
you need to hear my experience of his love too, so you can grasp how great it
is. There is no place in Christianity for solo spirituality. We experience God
in community, which would make sense since God is himself a communal being,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And it’s only as we share our lives together as
God’s holy people (what the Bible calls saints) that we can even begin to
understand his love.
Paul winds all of this up into one request;
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
What are you full of?
Some people are full of themselves. All they think about is themselves. Everything and everybody is evaluated in terms of how it helps them accomplish their goals, how it advances their career, how it serves their purposes. Sometimes even their faith is all about how it helps them succeed in the world. For them Christianity is good because it’s useful to them, not because it’s true.
Other people are full of pain. Everything they see is filtered through their pain. It shapes what they can and can’t see. People are kind to them and all they do is look for the angle. It distorts what they hear people saying to them, so words of love sound hurtful. A full glass of water spills water when you bump it, and someone full of pain spills pain when you connect with them. It’s what they’re full of.
What are you full of? Ephesians 3:19 calls us to be full of God, to be shaped by him in every aspect of our lives. That way we can live for him, no matter what comes our way.
[If you ever watch one of those underwater specials on TV you know that they often use a special submarine with really thick walls to get down really deep and make the film. But when they get down there they find they're not alone. When their lights are turned on and you look through the tiny, thick plate glass windows, what do you see? Fish! These fish cope with extreme pressure in an entirely different way. They don't build thick skins: they remain supple and free. They compensate for the outside pressure through equal and opposite pressure inside themselves.]
You don’t have to be hard and thick skinned to survive the pressures of life. There’s a better way. Turn to God and ask him to strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. The power of God in your life can compensate for the pressure from outside and allow you to live a life that is shaped by Christ at the core of your being.